1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for implementing an inter-PAL pass-through scheme in which protocol adaptation layers (PALs) may be shared in a manner that is beneficial to the underlying MAC/PHY layers.
2. Related Art
The next step in wireless communication is nearing. A first generation of mmWave, such as 60 GHz, wireless communication systems is in the process of being standardized as, for example, the proposed IEEE 802.11ad/WiGig standard. A broad spectrum of products that support mmWave wireless communication are being developed and manufactured.
The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) has defined the specification for the 60 GHz MAC/PHY layer. The WiGig MAC/PHY specification enables data rates up to 7 Gbps, which is significantly faster than any data rate available in Wi-Fi networks based on current standards. WiGig systems operate in the 60 GHz frequency band, and have a broader spectrum available than the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands used by existing Wi-Fi communications. This allows wider bandwidths that support faster transmission speeds.
WiGig has defined multiple protocol adaptation layers (PALs) on top of the 60 GHz MAC/PHY layer. This is not a wholly new concept in that other standards, such as Wi-Fi define similar or different protocol adaptation layers that facilitate specific applications over different MAC/PHY layers. FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate examples of the current, and currently proposed, PAL structure for Wi-Fi (FIG. 1A) and WiGig 60 GHz (FIG. 1B), respectively. As shown in FIG. 1A, currently in Wi-Fi, a Wi-Fi Display (WFD) PAL 110 is specified on top of the Wi-Fi MAC/PHY layer 100. As shown in FIG. 1B, multiple PALs 160-180 are specified on top of the WiGig 60 GHz MAC/PHY layer 150. These separate PALs 160-180 provide for optimal support of different types of applications according to the WiGig proposed standards for 60 GHz wireless communication. For example, the recently-developed WiGig Display Extension (WDE) PAL 160 supports wireless transmission of audio/video data via multiple interfaces and offers key audio/video applications, such as transmission of compressed or uncompressed video from a computer or digital camera to an HDTV, a monitor or a projector. The WiGig Serial Extension (WSE) PAL 165 defines high-performance wireless implementations of widely-used computer interfaces over 60 GHz enabling the multi-gigabit wireless connectivity between devices for, for example, USB type data traffic. The WiGig Bus Extension (WBE) PAL 170 supports Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) data traffic. A separate Secure Digital Input/Output (SDIO) PAL 175 supports SDIO traffic. Additionally, the WiGig architecture and standards leave open the possibility, and even likelihood, that other PALs 180 may be specified to support other traffic types as may be defined by WiGig in the future.
In this disclosure, the WiGig PALs and the parallel Wi-Fi PAL will be generally referred to simply as the PALs.
A difficulty in the currently-defined specifications is that there is no mechanism for cross-talk between the separate PALs such as WFD, WDE, WSE, WBE, SDIO and others. Specifically, at the transmitter and receiver ends of the wireless communication link, the PALs are separately and independently handled. One PAL does not, for example, currently understand the syntax of other PALs.
Each PAL defines unique features to optimize the transmission for the particular wireless communication traffic based on the application characteristics supported by that PAL. Conventionally, owing to the inability for cross-talk, features defined in one PAL cannot be re-used by another PAL. Each PAL is uniquely designed to deal with a specific type of information and each unique PAL, therefore, includes certain beneficial features based around the types of applications that the particular PAL supports.
The inability to provide cross-PAL communication results in certain drawbacks. For example, as the next generation wireless display requires technology such as WDE to support the driving demand for the cable replacement user experience, users will demand the available richer wireless displays that WDE supports. This may cause backward compatibility problems when different products implementing different PALs attempt to communicate in the marketplace, which could, in turn, lead to market confusion and customer dissatisfaction.
Further, a user is not afforded a best combination of currently-available features from all of the PALs based on their inability to communicate with one another. There are beneficial functions in, for example, one PAL that is not available to the user when the application is supported by a separate PAL.